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Reviews
Alberto Express (1990)
What price a life?
At a 21st years ago I cringed as a Greek father embarrassed his daughter and all of her friends by speculating on how much she had cost him and whether it had been worth it. In 'Alberto Express' generations of Italian fathers give their sons a sum of expenses which must be recompensed before the young man, in his turn, becomes a father. As a young lad leaving home for the first time, the hapless Alberto receives the pile of crumpled receipts which he must repay, with a sense of deepening dismay. On the eve of the birth of his first child he has a dream. He must, in this night, take a train from Paris to Rome and return to his father the sum of money which is owed. Unfortunately he doesn't have it.
In that state between sleeping and waking, which Joffé seems to inhabit with such ease, Alberto comes to confront his own mortality. This of course, according to the ticket inspector, an old but newly found friend, is not really such a big deal. After all, everybody has to do it sooner or later. An indisputable fact which does not, however, make it any easier.
The Alberto express whirls on through the night, accelerating in accord with Alberto's desperation. A host of characters flashes across the screen as if glimpsed in passing through the train's speeding windows. Whimsical, comic and curious, like all of Joffé's characters, they give one the impression of being in the centre of their own stories. They are beautifully cast and a joy to watch. Sergio Castellitto plays Alberto as an almost Candide like character, a questing innocent abroad in an unfamiliar world. That world has its share of memorable moments. Jeanne Moreau contributes a mysterious cameo that illustrates how even the greatest of empires fall or are transformed. A tank full of lobsters is released into a lake. Alberto 'liberates' people from their belongings. His ancestors dispute happily about their dues. It is an impermanent world.
In 'Alberto Express' Joffé has managed to convey a feeling of the elusive nature of time, not only in his subject matter, but in its depiction. The feeling of unreality which sets one adrift when traveling at night aptly creates a landscape for Alberto's shifting world. The film, like 'Que la lumière soit' has a Chagall like quality. I had that feeling when rewatching 'Que la lumière soit' recently. Then I found out that 'Alberto Express' is apparently the first of a trilogy which Joffé dedicated to his father and that his father was Russian and Jewish.
Oddly enough, all three films have been dubbed as amongst the best French films that nobody's ever seen. Perhaps somebody will remedy that by putting them out on DVD with English subtitles. It doesn't seem much to ask especially when one considers how much dross is out there.
Que la lumière soit (1998)
Lightly does it
By a fireside in a Gothic ruin sits an invisible God watching the world below on a television screen. Disparate images of war and dispossession intersect with images of religious observance. The television set implodes. The invisible God has existential problems. He's sometimes not quite sure whether he exists or not. However he does have a mission. He's working on a script which will bring humanity together. But will he be able to find the right director? Once upon a time he was in love with Joan of Arc. Her death still plagues his conscience. Is there a modern Joan of Arc somewhere down there who can bring his vision to the screen?
I first saw 'Let There Be Light' some years ago on SBS. When I went looking for it recently I found that there wasn't an English language version available on DVD, which seems a real shame. It's an immensely enjoyable film. It has a broad scope and works on many different levels. It's funny, thought provoking, beautifully paced and deftly put together. The music is bright and there are great moments of editing. Sure, it is a wildly preposterous premise and yes, I did watch it fearing that it might plummet. But actually I found it did the opposite.
At the heart of this film is a sense of gentle bemusement at the foibles of flailing humanity. This particularly shines through the heroine, played by Helene de Fougerolles. She is disarmingly unpretentious throughout and at times almost translucent. Tcheky Karyo does a suitably beguiling Mephistophelean character with relish and God in his many manifestations is a multifaceted wonder. At the end of the film there is a mirroring of that lonely image of God the writer which came at the beginning. Not a bad transformation for an old bloke.